Right: Pimm's v Pitchers revisited

Although some of the products involved were alcoholic beverages the exercise was a sobering one. For one thing, you soon get the idea as to which players do the work in their offices and which do the social networking. More to the point, the exercise demonstrated how much the protection conferred by the RCD can be likened to a sort of lottery, since so much is dependent on guesswork. The manufacturer of the original product doesn't know which features of his product a me-too maker will borrow, and the lookalike producer doesn't always know which features of his target have been protected, since publication of the RCD may have been deferred.

Left: WIPO design chief Gregoire Besson watches the workshop with detached amusement

My feeling is that the "what shall we protect?" exercise is done best where the in-house team starts off by pretending it's on the other side and asking how close it can get to the original product without risk of legal action, then work backwards towards a design and trade mark registration policy. But that's another matter ...